Every negative sentence would already be haunted by God

:The Significance of the Debate on Negative Theology between Derrida and Marion

Abstract

In 1997, two French philosophers, Derrida and Marion, debated on negative theology. Marion criticized Derrida for understanding that concept from the perspective of the affirmation/ negation dichotomy. Derrida, however, claimed that this criticism was a result of Marion's misunderstanding. This debate is usually studied to see how correctly Derrida and Marion understand the Christian tradition. However, in my view, this debate reveals the new idea of our everyday language from the perspective the contemporary philosophy of religion. This idea can be extracted from Derrida's phrase "every negative sentence would already be haunted by God". Marion overlooked the connotation of this phrase. The phrase means that our non-theological and non-religious languages have some religious function in so far as we should repeat the negative reference to God in negative theology and even in all everyday negative sentences.